The psychology of reversed roles

Sometimes, you get the most interesting conversations while testing sex beds.

Wolfgang: do you see how it is more sexy [when] you are on this place?

He had just clicked SWAP in the menu. Earlier, my avatar was tied up and his avatar was the dominant one. After the swap, his avatar was tied up and mine was the dominant one.

He thought it was a lot sexier when I dominated him. And that was surprising, coming from a man who has always been dominant. But we have reversed roles for a few months now. Taking a more submissive role was one of the "gifts" that he gave me recently and that he promised to give to me only, forever. It was an easy promise, like my promise that I would never take another dom ever. Being submissive is not his nature at all. And not mine either.

For him, the reversed roles were a way to balance our relationship. I'm still not a domme, but I "take care" of him in our roles. I'm the oldest in my RL family, so it came naturally to me. At the same time, he says that he feels at peace and mellowed out in a less dominant role. It also makes him less likely to "hunt" other partners, although he pursues Opal and my other public alts.

We've been meeting almost everyday for a few hours before I go to work. (Yes, I've been getting up at an ungodly hour to meet him.) And the last few weeks, we've been like rabbits. Only a few months ago, I thought that menopause had caught up with my libido. I was wrong.

So, yesterday, when he noticed the big difference in how he felt, just because he swapped our avatars, I realized that it probably had to do with our reversed roles.


Because FF is not my natural sexual orientation, he understood that I was projecting into his female avatar often. Many heterosexual men have created female avatars because female avatars get sex partners more easily. Then they project into their male partner's avatar. So when his avatar takes on the more passive role, I project into her, not on my own avatar, because I can relate with her passivity better.

I thought he was projecting into my avatar, when I take the more assertive role. But, many times in the past two months or so, he would get a feeling that he never expected and it would amaze him. And I'd say, "Yes! That's exactly how I felt when you ..." and I'd recall a situation we had a long time ago when I was in his shoes.

He is finally understanding why I did certain things, why I made sacrifices for him, why I felt insecure. He was understanding those things from a first-person perspective.

I too have had my own aha! moments when I began to understand how he felt when he dominated me.


Today, we realized that the reversal of roles intensifies our sexual relationship as well, because we essentially experience it "in stereo".

When I first started with stereoscopy, I marveled at how intense the images looked in 3D. Someone in the stereoscopy community responded that it's because our brain gets twice the information — once from the image in the left eye and again from the image in the right eye. Two slightly different 2D images processed by the brain as a single image in 3D.

So, the role reversal is something like that. We naturally relate to the role we are familiar with — the dominant role for him and the passive role for me. But in the process of acting out the reversed roles, we also get the perspective from the opposite side — the passive role for him and the dominant role for me. So each of us actually get the full perspective because we get the view from both roles. Deeply, intimately. In the first person. Like stereoscopy. That's why these experiences have been intense.

Anyway, that's my theory, and he thinks it makes sense. :)


Our relationship continues to evolve. We've become more emotionally and psychologically intimate. We're not the same people that we were the first time. The situation is different, because we are each other's only serious relationship nowadays. And, because of the reversal of roles, we relate differently with each other. Because of the reversal of roles, we understand each other better. From experience, not just from logic.

Hell hath no fury

Why is it that the older you get, the faster time flows? Seriously, this month just went whoooosh!

Well, granted I had a lot going on, both personally and with the book.  There's the machinima class I was teaching for MODA, the work I was doing for the Splo, then SL9B both for the book and for MODA and lots of little tasks in between.

Relationship-wise, a lot of things are also happening.  There are many times when I thought, "Oh, I should blog that."  But I was too tired or under a deadline that I didn't have time to write.  So, this post and the next one will be "catch up" posts.

The next post will be all about Impy but I won't write it until later because I don't want to spoil some surprises that I planned for him, because tomorrow is The Day.  :)  We'll be officially partnered tomorrow.

So, in this post, I'll only talk about developments with Wolfgang.


Released

Wolfgang once asked what I liked about wearing a collar.  I told him that I liked that he could just teleport me.  And I particularly enjoyed when he undressed me himself.  It's like in real life; being undressed by a man feels much more sensual and erotic than undressing myself.

And when he teleports me without asking for my permission first, it feels like he's claiming me as his.  Like I belong to him, like a wife belongs to her husband.  It's like saying, I belong by his side, no "if"'s, "and"'s or "but"'s.

This past month, we've been arguing a lot, discussing a lot of things, particularly the BDSM part of our relationship.  We argued about the spanking.  To him, it's part of the sensuality of BDSM.  But the context of it bothers me.

It's not the concept of spanking that bothers me.  With mfpwtff, we each had spankers that simply spouted that "X spanked Y" with the accompanying sound effects.  The "spanking" was playful.  He would do it out of the blue and I would reciprocate.  It's like a pillow fight.  It seems aggressive but it really isn't.  And of course, we were equals in the relationship, so I could spank back.

But with Wolfgang, the spanking was roleplayed as a "punishment" and, as a punishment, it gives me no pleasure.  It isn't fun anymore.  He explained that sometimes one of his other subs would make up a "transgression" so that she would "deserve" a spanking and that was how she would initiate a sensual encounter.  But that's not the same for me.  I explained to him that a punishment is a "distancing" between us.  Instead of us pulling together, a punishment pulls us apart.  Therefore, even a kiss, if it is given as a punishment, would taste bitter to me.

For days, we continued to argue about aspects of BDSM.  I told him to just do what he wants.  After all, he was my master.  But he refused to do anything that doesn't give me pleasure.  He had been telling me that since the start, since the incident with the kneeling and the leash.  And I think that incident made him skittish, so that he's more careful about what he does with me and, since then, he always asked me how I felt about something.

On one hand, that's exactly why I trust him as a dom.  On the other hand, I get more nervous about what he's about to do, because if he has to ask me for permission to do something, it must be really bad, right?  So *I* get more skittish too.

Even when I tell him that I don't really know how I would feel until I've had the experience, he refuses to do it.  He kept saying he'd rather avoid making me feel bad.


Then he asked, "Would you prefer to put off collar, leash, anything related to our first relationship and just be usual, simple lover?"

I said, "I don't know."  Then I explained why.

I reiterated that I don't make a good sub because I am too independent.  But I do it for him.

That's when he asked what I liked about the BDSM relationship, without considering what he likes.  So I told him what I like and I told him what I do for his sake.  "I do them for you because of how I feel about you."

"But you don't like," he half asked.

I gave him a long answer, "On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 means I absolutely hate it and 10 means I absolutely love it, ... without considering what you want ... just on its own ... I'd say it's a 3. Maybe 3.5 ."

He said, "ok" and I kept explaining that I had suppressed that feeling since the leash and kneeling incident, because that alt wasn't connected to my RL anyway, so I could dissociate.  In the past, we had talked about dissociating when we do things I'm not comfortable with, and he argued against that too.  He'd rather not do it, if it meant I would dissociate, because it would make him feel lonely.

I had to go afk, and he said he would also get a cup of coffee.  When I came back, he had unlocked the collar and set it to invisible.  He left it on, only so that he could still tp me and undress me because I enjoy those.

That was June 11 in the early morning.

I was stunned and deeply touched.  In response, I cleaned my profile to remove anything about BDSM in it, including my character's background story.  I wouldn't have another master again.  If I wanted a master again, I'd rather it was him.  And if he refuses to be my master, then no one else will be, not even temporarily.

Besides, I committed that alt to him.  And with that statement, we started another argument.  He said that he doesn't like the idea that, when our relationship is over, I'd put that alt to sleep.  I asked why it would matter to him what I did with that alt, if he doesn't care about me anymore.  It would just hurt me if I log in as her because it would remind me of him.  He said that the idea makes him "smell" death on her already.  *sigh*

Then we argued about the terms of endearment that I call him.  He didn't want me to call him those words again because they would remind him of what he "lost".  *sigh*


He wasn't sure how our relationship would go after that.  And it seemed that we had been arguing even more since.  They're not emotional arguments, but more like negotiations.  Each of us explaining what we prefer and why.  But they're tiring anyway.

Many times, during those arguments, I doubted whether it was still worth staying.  We argued about every little thing.  We couldn't be more incompatible.  And it felt as though I was the one who was always giving in.  And it was too much work.  And for what?

I always said I wouldn't chase after a man who doesn't want me.  And it felt as though he only wanted me because I wore his leash and collar.  And now that those are gone, what else could he want from me?



Then two things happened.


Bullied

We had been looking for new sims to hang out in where he never took his other alts in.  We were trying to avoid his new alt being associated with his other two alts and causing jealousies from his other lovers and subs again.

We were quietly chatting on a swing in one of those sims when a couple approached us.  They had been hanging around for a short while before the man came and stood a few feet from us.  His companion looked like a little girl.

The sim was a PG sim and the swing only had cuddles.  Yet the man came and told us to go elsewhere and rent a room.  I replied and told him to leave us alone.  They themselves looked like they were doing age-play and we didn't bother them, so why were they bothering us.  He insisted that his companion was normal-sized and that I was a "monster" for being tall.  Of course, he was my size, and he didn't explain why he looked like an older man who was with a girl avatar that was barely half his size wearing bright pink lipstick and pigtails and a title which included the word "princess".

Then he moved his avatar over us so that his crotch was right at mine.  So I stood up and started filing an abuse report while Wolfgang had words with him.  The "old man" continued to be verbally insulting and abusive towards me.  Wolfgang continued to insult him back.  I finished the abuse report and even forwarded the chat log to the owner of the sim.  At that point, the intruders took over the swing.

So, all that was just so they could take over the swing, just like schoolyard bullies.

We teleported out after I got the reports done.  And as Wolfgang hugged me goodnight, he wanted to go back and make them uncomfortable by hanging around.  But he was going to leave his avie there while he was afk and I was uncomfortable with that.  They could get him into a compromising scenario and file a report against *him*.

What surprised me was that he kept insisting that I let him do it his way.  To be honest, he didn't need my permission.  He could have just sent me off to bed and gone back after I logged off.  But it felt as though he couldn't do it until I gave up and said, "Fine, do it your way."


Hell hath no fury

Alt#27 first received a cryptic IM that said, "don't believe all she says."  The account was only a few days old.  I figured it was mistakenly sent to me.

The next day, a notecard came from another new account.  In the notecard, she wrote many things about Wolfgang and his alts and his BDSM activities.  Of course, I knew about those.  But she painted a very unflattering picture of him.

I told Wolfgang about the notecard and he thought he knew who it might be.  An old friend who thought there was more between them than there really was.  As we talked about it, I said I wouldn't do anything about it unless she contacted me again.  He asked me what I would.  I said I would just talk to her.  I was thinking of calming her down, but he took it as a sign that I trusted her more than I trusted him, and he became upset.

I had to explain to him that it wasn't an issue of not trusting him.  It was an issue of worrying he would exacerbate the situation if he confronts her, especially since it was he whom she was upset about and it was I whom she was reaching out to.  And especially since he doesn't always choose to do the wisest thing, like going back to the sim where the bullies were.

He said it's a matter of protecting his own privacy.  And we argued about that too.  She pulled me into the issue, so it became my problem.

But, in the end, I had to agree to not respond to her if she contacts me again.

To be honest, the notecard *did* make me doubt him.  I know his faults.  I've witnessed them and he had admitted to them.  And I accepted them as part of who he is anyway.  And because I knew a lot about him, I was able to discern what parts of the notecard were fact and what parts were her opinions.  But the notecard still raised some doubts.

At that point, I brought up the idea that I was thinking of leaving.  And that started another argument.  He was hurt by the way I said it.  Because it was as though it was only my decision and that it wouldn't affect him.  Suddenly, I had a sense that he would really be hurt if I left.

He was upset because I just decided to talk to the woman instead of conferring with him first.  From my perspective, it was my problem because she came to me.  I don't need to ask anybody's permission to talk to anybody I wanted to.  From his perspective, talking to her was a decision that he and I had to agree on.

And then we talked about "us."  The "us" that I didn't think existed because we had an unequal relationship as dom and sub, because he always felt distant, because it felt as though I was the only one who was there because of emotions.  Suddenly, there was "us."  The man who didn't want my name in his profile was talking about "us."

He is psychologically very complex.  And very stubborn.  He told me about his childhood and his teenage years and I understand him a bit more.  It's still very exhausting.

If I knew that it didn't make a difference to him whether I stayed or not, I would leave.  But the conversation had changed things.  He still refuses to say he loves me, because he says that the word "love" means different things to different people and that he communicates with his behavior instead.

At the same time, I don't want to end up like his old "friend" who misinterpreted his friendship for romantic love.

But I'm staying for now.  I saw his own pain.  I saw the reasons for his walls.  Maybe that's also why he can't let me go.  Maybe I'm one of the very few who see through the walls.

Sometimes, all we really need is a witness.

Frog anxiety

There's a well-known metaphor about a frog that goes like this: If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out right away.  But if you put a frog in a pot of lukewarm water, and then set the pot on the stove, the frog will boil to death.



My experiment in BDSM isn't going well.  I've lost my objectivity.  Not that I've been objective about it when I started anyway, because of my unflattering preconceptions of doms.  But with emotions mixed in, this whole experiment became mixed up.  I can't even analyze what's what and where things are coming from and why certain emotions are coming up and whether they're BDSM emotions or something else.  It's all a big mess.

Wolfgang has been very gentle with me.  Too gentle.  And sometimes, I regret that I tell him about my worries and anxieties about the whole BDSM RP that we are doing.  It made him nervous.

I think he himself noticed it when he said that I had become "soft."  Initially, I thought that he meant I had become more tender, more loving in the RP.  Maybe he meant something else.  Maybe he meant I've become more fragile.

We were transitioning into a different type of RP, but I felt that we had to give the old one some closure.  Even he said, when I initially expressed my concern about this RP, that it was like throwing a book away before finishing it.  Then later, it was I who insisted on finishing the RP, even though it is uncomfortable for me.

So, last night, we started a scene in our RP that's part of the transition to the new one. It was a female-to-female scene and he was using one of his female alts.  Then in the middle of the scene, he asked OOC if I was enjoying the RP.  Damn.  Why did he have to ask?

I told him that it feels a little awkward, and I jokingly added that I'd survive.  He didn't understand what I meant by "awkward" and he asked me to explain.  I said that the scene was for him and that I don't have to enjoy it.  (He had mentioned once that he enjoys watching female-to-female seduction.)

I said, "I've never had sex with a woman irl, so I don't have the experience to draw from.  And I don't have the inclination to, so it doesn't arouse me."  There was a long pause before he responded, so I kept babbling.  I had a feeling he would protest. He always insisted that he wouldn't do anything unless we were both getting pleasure out of it.

He said that he thought I had some female-to-female experience in SL in the past, and he figured that I might enjoy it, if the other female was more agreeable.  I had told him about a foursome experience I had with a lover and two of his female lovers, one of whom was a dom who hated me, probably because that lover preferred to be with me.

I explained to Wolfgang that that experience was when I was very new in SL.  At that time, I didn't know how to RP and all I did was simply sit on a poseball and my lover did everything else.  I was able to dissociate.

But Wolfgang refuses to do anything where I have to dissociate from my avatar.  He says it makes him feel lonely to be the only one gaining pleasure from it.

He told me a story of one of his affairs where his partner pretended to enjoy the female-to-female interactions and even encouraged it.  When he found out that she didn't enjoy it at all, it sullied his enjoyment of it and he stopped seeing her.  I told him it was the lie that soured the relationship, not the fact that he was the only one who enjoyed it.  But he disagreed.

He started wrapping up the RP scene, skipping what he had originally planned.

I asked, "Why can't you accept a gift?"


But he is stubborn and so am I.


I worry that without the BDSM, he would be bored and move on.  He worries that without BDSM, our relationship wouldn't be special anymore and he would be just another lover in my life.  It didn't comfort him when I explained that each of my relationships is special.  There is always something that sets each one apart from the others.  And when I miss a lover, I miss that specific lover.


At the same time, the more I think about BDSM, the more I hate the concept.  And, yes, I understand that "hate" is a strong word.  And, yes, I understand that the intensity of my reaction to it is probably a reflection of my own psyche fighting my shadow side.  (That last sentence is for you psychologists out there.)  And that's probably another reason I'm delving into this.  To face my demons and learn to accept my shadow side.

I don't know where this would go.  I don't know what would happen when we get on the other side.  His caring, his concern for my emotional well-being and my enjoyment, his empathy all touch me and awe me.

But I worry that that same gentleness, in the context of BDSM, might be even more dangerous, like the lukewarm water that slowly heats up.  I wouldn't know when to jump out, and then it'll be too late.

Rib-bit.

Virtual violence

When I first joined the fashion industry as a model, I added a "Limits" section to my portfolio, very much like RP limits. I specified that I would not allow myself to be in a photo that depicts violence against women or denigration of women.

Today, I inadvertently broke that rule.

I was responding to a call for stand-ins in the MaMachinima group. The group notice didn't describe what the machinima would be about. Well, I thought it would be benign like the ones I've volunteered for in the past.

When I tp'd over, the first people I noticed were two naked women who were dancing in the air. The film maker asked me to stand by a "rack". And one of the naked dancers started chatting with me after reading my profile.

I was distracted by the chat, the lag, and my camera wiggling because of alphas all over the place.

Then I noticed that another female avie was near the film maker, and she was tied upside down from the triangular rack. Well, the film maker and I were both wearing gowns from Violator with lots of "tentacles", so I didn't notice that she had a whip in her hand. I had mistaken it as a "tentacle".

But even after I realized it was a whip, my mind zoomed in on how realistic the animation was that made the tied woman's body writhe. It didn't occur to me how violent the scene was.

If it were a man who was whipping her, it probably would have bothered me more. But because it was a woman whipping another woman (I later found out it was the film maker's own alt), it wasn't an issue about gender anymore, and somehow it felt more tolerable.

I had read "The Book of O" years ago and didn't quite understand a big part of it. But now that I've chatted with a lot of people in the BDSM community, I understood a lot more when I rediscovered the book recently and reread it. The odd thing was that the book mentioned that women actually can be more cruel against other women than men are.

What really troubles me is that I wasn't disturbed at all by the scene today. Is it because it's violence from one woman to another? Is it because I know that it's only virtual and she's not really being hurt? Or have I become immune to violence? Have I lost my empathy? Or is it something else?

MAD

I think I've talked in the past about how we bring so much of ourselves into SL, how our avatars represent more of our real psyches than we care to admit. Each of my alts are different aspects of my real self. They each have their own domain, their own purpose for existing.

But, a few days ago, I (as Opal) felt a faint sense of jealousy over Alt #9's skin, which prompted me to get the same skin for Opal, even though I already said I won't be buying new skin for Opal for a while. So that was a vague hint of separating. Of aspects of me pulling apart.

Then last night, I witnessed the same separation on someone else.

You see, Alt #9's bf (BF #1) created a new alt (BF #2). BF #2 is supposed to belong to my Alt #9 exclusively, so he wouldn't be disturbed by IMs and such, while he's with me. So, we were running around yesterday, shopping for skin and hair and other important parts. *grins* Anyway, (with my prodding, of course), he used the same shape and the same skin, except with a different beard and different hair, so they looked like twins, but not quite. The goatee on BF #2 made him look more like the "bad boy" type; that beard was his choice.

He had both alts logged in almost the whole time. And towards the end of the evening, I asked, "So, whom do I cuddle with tonight?" And BF #1 replied that he would, then he proceeded to shoo away BF #2, like a jealous boyfriend.

It was a funny and charming roleplay, but I was surprised that he seemed very decided that he chose BF #1 to stay, even though he created BF #2 specifically to be with me. I told him I was glad anyway, because I've grown attached to BF #1, even though I know they're both him. I said that it feels like there was more of him in BF #1; he agreed that there was.

You know, I'm surprised that the mental health professionals aren't coming down on SL in droves. SL isn't helping people integrate their personalities; it's allowing people to split up their personalities even more. :D

Hmmm, I wonder if I could sell a book titled, "Multiple Alt Disorder (MAD) - Split Personalities in Virtual Worlds"....

And, yes, Alt #10 will be named Sybil, and she'll definitely be a member of the "SLoony Bin Residents" group.

Alt envy

Well, I was dressing my new alt today (yes, the mystery alt with the love affair). And I was taking her pictures, and I realized,... Geez, she looks so much better than Opal! Of course, Opal got jealous, so I had to buy her a new skin today. :D

It's the same skin as the mystery alt. And since the shape is very similar and just tweaked slightly, they look almost like twins now.

It used to be that I'd use a different skin manufacturer for each alt, but certain looks just feel right, and this feels right for Opal right now.

I think it might also be psychological. I'm in that alt a lot nowadays so I associate with that alt more. Plus I'm having a lot of feel-good emotions there, so, in a sense, I'm pulling some of those good vibes into this side.

So, the triptych is gone from my profile now and replaced with this one:


I'll be changing my picture in all other web applications soon.

Meanwhile, the mystery alt is having quite a torrid love affair. Gamel said that "torrid" is an ugly word and suggested other adjectives like "passionate", "ardent", or "beautiful". I replied that "torrid" was the perfect adjective with the "rrrrrr" sound, because of all the sex going on. And he wished me a verrrrrrrrrrrry torrrrrrrrrrrrid affair. LOL

The Three Faces of Opal

Okay, I wasn't quite happy with my new skin so I bought the other one in my list, and I kept going back and forth between the two, tweaking and molding my face. But I still keep going back to the familiar.

Usually, when I change my look, I stare at my avie's face for a long time. I think it's a way of associating with it, of putting my consciousness into it. Yeah, kinda like that Genesis thing of "breathing life" into your own creation. Or like staring at your own face in the mirror and accepting that that's who you are.

So, as of this point, I have these three faces, and this triptych will be my profile picture for a while. That should trigger some interesting conversation when it comes up in one of those gadgets that display profile pictures of guests.



Anyway, I may continue to keep tweaking. I'm not likely to buy a new skin anytime soon, since I spent a fortune on these two already. But neither of the two new looks feel like *me*. I think it has to do with the difficulty of defining "me" in the first place.

*sigh*

Who knew creating an avatar would be an adventure in self-discovery in itself? And we're talking about just one of my nine lives....



When will my reflection show who I am inside....

"Describe your personality"... Which one?

I just completed my application for a position as a model with the MODA Spotlight team.

One of the questions is "List 5 words that describe your personality" and, in my opinion, it is the most difficult question in the list. So I have the usual stuff in it, but the last one is one that I think my friends who know me well would be vigorously nodding their heads to:

"e. Multiple (often followed by the word 'disorder') - supposedly as evidenced by my growing number of alts"

:D

Keeping my psychoses

This is a response to some of Xiana's points in her comment to "Sunrise in Aglia". As she had mentioned in the past, she and I disagree on a lot of things. But, hey, we've disagreed since she was born. Still, I'm very proud of her writing and her thoughts. And I love her dearly and unconditionally.

Romantic love is always conditional -- "I will love you if you love only me." Only universal love can be truly unconditional -- "I love you no matter what." Universal love sets the other person free, if necessary. Universal love is not the same thing as martyrdom. Universal love does not sacrifice love of self in exchange for love of other, because universal love is love of all God's aspects, which includes the self as well as the other.

Breaking down barriers that someone puts up to protect their heart is disrespectful of their psychological boundaries. Better to entice the person out of their emotional forts by assuring them that it's safe to come out.

Trying to fix a broken man -- or a broken woman, for that matter -- is like teaching a frog to sing. You'll only waste your time and irritate the frog. First, true change and true healing can only come from within. Second, the other person might not even think they're "broken." They might think it's just who they are.

When I was winding down my therapy with a shrink after my divorce, my shrink said that I could still continue to visit and we could work on my other issues. My response was "No, thank you. I'd like to keep some of my psychoses. They make me an interesting person." ;D

Who am I?

Last night, a new friend noticed when I referred to my avatar in the third person and it struck him. He says he thinks of his avatar as himself. I told him that I started dissociating from Opal the first time my heart was broken. It was my way of dealing with the pain. This morning, I wondered, what if I dissociated with my real life self? And -- boom! -- it hit me. I found one answer to the age-old question "Who am I?"

Who I am is not this physical body in the real world, and certainly not my avatar. Who I am is not the personality, not the mind. Who I am may not even be what we call the individual soul. All those are just tools to bring forth who I REALLY am. Who I really am is the sum of my actions, my experiences, my thoughts, my emotions, my memories.

But let me demonstrate how infinite that sum is. You see, my actions, my experiences, my thoughts, my emotions, and my memories are tightly integrated with the actions, experiences, thoughts, emotions, and memories of everybody I've encountered and everybody who has ever been affected by my actions. Life is a shared experience after all.

Therefore, who I am is also the sum of the actions, experiences, thoughts, emotions, and memories of all those people. And each of them is the sum of their own actions, experiences, thoughts, emotions, and memories, and those of every person THEY've encountered. And so on, until it comes back to me and goes around again. Ad infinitum.

So, who am I? I am you.

A case for anonymity

I had been good about keeping my anonymity intact until recently. Circumstances have forced me to reveal my identity to a few people. Two of those circumstances were issues of trust and accountability; the third was an economic decision.

Jaime asked me once why I feel the need to be anonymous. I don't do anything illegal in SL. The most compromising thing I've done is cyber sex*, but isn't sex a natural part of the human experience anyway? And didn't I want to take credit for the work I've done inside SL?

But there is one significant reason.

SL allows us to be what we cannot be in real life, to live a fantasy. For me, that fantasy is to have physical beauty. But I've later realized that having a beautiful avatar is not just for my own benefit; it is also a gift to the world. After all, aren't we just trying to create Utopia in here? So, just as an artist creates a thing of beauty as a gift to the world, this avatar is my contribution to Utopia.

But it is so easy to fall in love in SL and, eventually, someone falls in love with the fantasy I created and I fall in love right back with the fantasy they've created. I always remind my lovers that they're falling in love with a woman who does not exist. Yes, I have the same intelligence, personality, and voice in real life, but I do not have the beauty that my avatar has. They insist that it's still me. But no matter what these men say, my avatar's looks are part of what attracted them to me, part of the fantasy of having won the affections of a beautiful woman. After all, isn't it a big ego boost to have a beautiful woman on your arm?

Revealing my identity would dispel that fantasy. Wouldn't it be a big let-down if you realize that the lover, whose beauty you have been proud of, is not beautiful at all? Maybe that doubt was always in the back of your mind, but having it confirmed would be as cruel as having a gift snatched away from you.

So, besides the few exceptions, I remain anonymous, I preserve the fantasy. For my sake and for the sake of every SL lover I've had.


* In light of a recent SL blog, I guess I should emphasize that I'm talking about sex between consensual adults.

Into the fourth

Maybe it's because of the history of computer gaming that people behave the way they do in SL. In the first generation of computer games, we competed with the machine. In the second generation, we played with other people by shooting each other down or slashing each other with a sword. And here we are, in the third generation, where we use each other.

I understand that it is easy to forget that we are not the only thinking and feeling souls in SL. Sometimes, it's as though we're interacting with machines. And, even if we do keep in mind that there are other souls in here, we behave as though they are exactly like us, that they think the same thoughts and feel the same emotions.

But they don't necessarily. In fact, we encounter more diversity in SL than we do in real life. In real life, most of us have learned to blend in with the communities we live and work in. To a degree, we share the same culture, the same language, the same customs, even the same beliefs and principles. And we rarely encounter people who have nothing in common with us, because we don't frequent the same places that they do. But, in SL, all of humanity's diversity is thrown into the same pot.

Yes, after we get tired of exploring all of SL, we finally settle on a number of places that we enjoy. Still, the likelihood of meeting people who are very different from us is much greater than the likelihood of meeting them in real life. And for that reason, we need more tolerance in SL than in real life.

And an integral part of that tolerance includes respect for the other person as a human being. We may not agree with their views. We may not approve of their actions. But they deserve some respect anyway. Respect for their humanness, respect for their free will.

I have, in fact, met very many good souls in SL. So, in spite of one or two bad experiences, I still have hope about SL and MMORPGs in general. Maybe we're coming into the fourth generation of gaming, where we really are creating an ideal virtual world, not just ideal in the visible and the auditory, but also ideal in its soulfulness.

My shrink: SL

(I had been trying to keep my SL persona separate from my real life self. And I had planned for this blog to be Opal's voice alone. But writing purely in Opal's voice is very difficult. Opal has very limited experiences. Even though I made her aware of her creator, writing from her perspective can become very two-dimensional. And if I attribute my thoughts to her, how do I explain the source of her wisdom? So I swing from different perspectives. Sometimes, the "I" is just Opal. Sometimes, it's the "I" in real life. But most of the time, it's a combination of both. In this entry, it is the "I" in real life speaking.)

Creating Opal is somewhat like creating a fictional character. Fiction writers have talked about their characters coming alive, such that they talk about those characters as though they were real people. I've even read of a writer (I can't remember who it was now), who said that he just creates the characters and the characters write the plot.

I've also heard it said that there's always something of the writer in the fictional character. That is, that the character is actually just an aspect of the writer's personality. Well, Opal has a lot of me in her. But at some point in the past month, I realized that I've been using Opal to balance my real life. I give her what I cannot have or don't allow myself to have in real life. That includes her looks, as well as her experiences. But creating an entirely new personality is as difficult as telling a lie. And since I'm in-world as much as I am, that can be very tiresome. So, Opal's personality is actually mine. But filtered. She gets the good parts of my personality.

However, last night, I had a spillover. And a bad one.

I (as Opal) was with the man I was seeing. We had another wonderful evening together. But, as we were holding each other, getting ready to say goodnight, I said that, if he wants exclusivity, he just has to ask. But, he's not ready.

He said it so sweetly, but it shook me out of the fantasy and back into reality. And I suddenly realized that, there they are -- my real life abandonment issues, intruding into my perfect virtual reality. And they've been there the whole time! I mean, in real life, I am fiercely independent. I had paid dearly for my freedom, that I tell people I'm "happily divorced." And, yet, in virtual reality, I am drawn to commitments. What on earth?!?

It's gotta be my abandonment issues. What else could they be?

Blame it on that kiss anim. It shuts down my left brain.